When is employee theft not theft?

[sue11]

One of our employees has stolen some money from the till in one of our stores. He did this on 2 occasions that we are aware of, the first being some cash he stole instead of dropping it into the safe and the second time he simply walked into the store when he was not on duty, opened the till and helped himself to cash. When challenged by another employee on duty at the time, he denied that he took any cash or opened the till. However our cctv cameras have caught him stealing cash on both occasions.
We sacked him and reported him to the police (note that we have received legal advice from our employee advisors and have followed the correct procedures). When the police spoke to the employee he claimed that he had taken money from the store because we owed him money in wages.
This is completely untrue and we have advised the police so, but they are telling us before they can proceed any further, we must prove to them that we do not owe him any money. I know that within employment law, if an employee has been underpaid/not paid, they must raise it with the company, if this does not settle matters, then they must raise a grievance and if necessary take it to an employment tribunal. I have never heard that it is acceptable for anyone to help themselves to cash that they believed they are owed by their employers!
If this is the case, then surely any employee can do this and claim they are owed money by thier employers? My gut feeling is that the police cannot be bothered to chase this for us and are hoping that we will drop the matter. We have now had to get together all the paperwork to prove tha
Our original contact with the police was made by at the end of December, the police have been very dismissive with our area manager and are now only doing more now my partner has been more insistent with them.
Has anyone heard of any other cases like this?
Many thanks
Sue

[Mosaic]

You are being given the run-around in the hope you'll go away. Get the legal help that the company normally uses onto it.
Otherwise householders would have to prove they didn't actually owe someone that HD TV, the jewellery and the laptop......

[Count-A-Strong]

Sue, please try not to post questions twice as people may go to the trouble of answering your question at some length only to find that someone else has already done so on your other post, or worse, that the Editor has seen fit to delet one of your questions. A waste of time in both situations.

I don't think the police are saying that your employee had any justification in taking money out of the till but if it were the case it may have a bearing on the evidence in a court case. It should be fairlty simple for you to prove that no monies are outstanding to him. You may (?) find that the Police become more 'active' once you've provided this information.

[Count-A-Strong]

http://www.theanswerb...n/Question980186.html

[sue11]

Thank you for your posts, I posted twice as both topics are a good fit for the question, but I see your point and do not wish to waste anyone's time.
I understand that the police may wish to gather evidenence, but would have thought this would be neccessary if the case went to court, not for them to decide if they wish to take it on or not! Surely theft of money from a till, should be considered as theft regardless? I feel that we are in the position of big bad employers having to prove that we have a case against our poor defencless little employee, who is probably laughing his head off, thinking he has got away with it!
Many thanks
Sue

[eyethenkyew]

Yes, indeed, not only have I heard of this but have had dealings. Firstly, and this is not a criticism of you because you probably didn't know what to do for the best, but this is the best way forward in case you're unfortunate enough to experience this again:
Incidentally, I obviously don't know which Police you're dealing with, but from what you say above, their attitude stinks, because I know for a fact that courts do indeed frown upon what's known as "theft from employer" for which there's a specific offence on the statute books within The Theft Act.

1: If at all suspicious about an employee, monitor your cctv as much as possible, make notes of times, dates etc when suspect's on duty of any untoward behaviour which suggests impropriety with any of your stock as well as cash.

2: If so, get your partner as well to view the video in question for evidential purposes, and keep the video to one side.

3: Make sure that you cash up at the end of every working day and that you're aware of how much is in the till when the suspect begins work. If you have till rolls, hold onto the relevant ones in case the suspect tries to claim that all the transactions were valid and above board. Your till rolls can help to disprove that.

4: Without bringing it to the suspect's attention, the best thing to do would be to arrange to go in person to your nearest Police Station, taking any evidence, like the video(s), till rolls etc with you, and request the Police to start the ball rolling by taking a written statement of complaint from you and offering them the evidence you've brought.

5: The Police ought then to act on this complaint by arranging to have the suspect arrested and interviewed. The tricky bit will be whether or not you would be comfortable with it being done at work, or letting them have his/her home address. At the same time you would be perfectly within your rights to serve the suspect with

[eyethenkyew]

(continued)

....have the suspect informed in writing that you're terminating his/her employment. Do not go into too much detail, but suffice to say that your suspicions and evidence of him/her acting inappropriately has prompted this.

The Police are there to take action against any suspected criminals, especially when there is credible evidence for doing so. Do not be fobbed off. And do not be afraid to complain if you think you are.
Best of luck.

[sue11]

Eyethenkyew and everyone else, many thanks for this and I hope that you read my very late response!
Just to follow up on this case, the employee in question is now in prison on another more serious offence and the police were waiting to interview him in relation to ours and other offences. Unfortunately he has been moved to another prison after being sentenced for the serious crime and the decision has been taken that these lesser offences are not worth pursuing at this moment, even if the police got a conviction, it would just run concurrently with the time already being served. However the police have informed me that these latest crimes will be held on his record and will be immediately be retrieved and used against him when (as it is probably likely) that he comes out and simply commits more crimes.
Many thanks for all the responses.
Sue